Budget passes with school staff increases

Tuesday

May 16, 2017 at 12:40 PMMay 16, 2017 at 12:40 PM

By Elaine ThompsonTelegram & Gazette Staff

SHREWSBURY – Town meeting members Monday night approved a fiscal 2018 operating budget of $119,025,932. The recommended budget for the schools, $62,375,000, a 3.26 percent increase, represents about 52 percent of the town’s total operating budget.

The school budget included several new staff positions, including an additional assistant principal, to address the rising enrollment at the high school. Since the high school opened 15 years ago, enrollment has increased by 707 students or 62 percent.
One noted reduction is the number of students in Grades 9-12 who attend Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlboro. The town is spending $2.1 million to pay the tuition of students who go to the vocational school this fiscal year. That number is projected to be about $1.6 million next year.
One town meeting member asked if Shrewbury students will at some point be able to attend Worcester Technical High School.
School Committee member B. Dale Magee said the Worcester vocational school has a lengthy waiting list, to the extent that the school is almost exclusively accepting students who live in Worcester.
Town meeting also approved a $1,033,623 capital budget. Some of the items to be purchased include four replacement police cruisers, and several dump trucks. Other capital projects include resurfacing of the tennis courts at Dean Park, interior painting at the high school, and paving at Spring Street School.
After lengthy debate and two standing vote counts, town meeting narrowly adopted a citizen-petitioned resolution that opposes a proposed 125-mile pipeline project that could run through part of the town. The vote was 120 in favor of the resolution and 91 against it.
The Access Northeast Pipeline proposed by Spectra/Enbridge Energy Corp. would include the 27-mile West Boylston lateral in the towns of Boylston, Grafton, Milford, Millbury, Shrewsbury, Sutton and West Boylston. About five miles of the pipeline would run through Shrewsbury and affect about 400 property owners.
Proponents of the warrant article said the proposal is bad for the environment, and it would negatively affect safety and reduce property values as much as 5 to 30 percent.
Town meeting last year defeated a similar request. The Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee voted to not recommend passage of the article.
Selectmen said the project is not viable because the state Supreme Judicial Court in August said the project owners could not hike the rates of electricity customers to pay for the new natural gas pipelines.
“What we see right now, in our estimation, we do not see this as a viable project. Regardless of what the proponents say,” John I. Lebeaux, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said to town meeting members. “We see a project that is now at best hypothetical. The funding source has been denied. If it’s hypothetical, it’s very difficult for us to evaluate the true facts of the matter. As a Board of Selectmen I don’t think the town is well served by a board making decisions based on gut reaction.”
Steve Fishman, a member of a grass-roots group called No Gas Pipeline, said the project is still alive.
“The project is not dead. It has only been suspended. This is an active project. The only thing that’s stopping it is financing,” he said.
Henry Bergassi said the point of adopting the resolution is to send a message that the pipeline is not welcome in Shrewsbury. “Right now it starts with sending a message as it has been done in Upton, Grafton and other towns,” he said.
A similar citizen-petitioned resolution was adopted at a special town meeting in Grafton last week.
Frank B. Stille, a Precinct 8 town meeting member, said he doesn’t believe in sending a message. He said the state needs additional natural gas to stay economically competitive.
“New England needs more capacity. Massachusetts has the highest electric rates in the contiguous U.S. because of a lack of capacity,” he said. “What does that say for our long-term economic future?”
William E. Royer, Precinct 1 town member, spoke in favor of the resolution.
“The high school is the jewel and crown of the town. The idea of putting a pipeline within a thousand feet of a school is in my mind enough to say no.”
Town meeting will resume Wednesday with Article 13.